WincestMas 2017 (Sam/Dean, G-NC-17) Part 1 of 4

Summary: Short stories with holiday fun and games and angst and schmoop for the Winchesters.

Read it over on AO3 right here.

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Meeting Under the Mistletoe

The first time it happened was way back on December sixth, he remembered because they’d stayed the first six days of the month in Colorado finishing up a case. He’d gone into the motel office to turn in their room keys and had paused on his way out under the door frame when something brushed over the top of his head. Just as he’d looked up to see what it was, he’d felt a familiar hand in an unfamiliar place, wrapped around the back of his neck, tugging him down to kissing level. Dean’s lips were warm and soft, and so was the kiss.

His brother hadn’t said anything afterwards, just trotted off to jump in the driver’s seat and started up the Impala with a roar. Sam had looked up at the mistletoe hanging in the doorway and smiled before he’d joined Dean in the car. Dean had never been in the habit of kissing him in public like that, maybe in a dark corner of a bar every now and then, but not broad daylight where anyone could see. It was weird…nice, but still weird.

The second time was a few days later, when they were coming out of the local grocery store they’d recently been using in Kansas. Their arms were full of bags, they’d really stocked up because a big snowstorm was forecast for later in the week. Dean had paused on the doorstep, and Sam instinctively paused and stepped back behind him, scanning the area. There was a rustle of bags as Dean transferred all of his to one hand and used the other to tug Sam down into a really hot teasing sort of kiss. Sam had been left in the high-arched doorway a bit stunned as Dean had headed out towards the car on his own without a backward glance.

Sam had heard the checkout girls giggling behind him and felt an unwanted blush staining his cheeks. He’d rolled his eyes and caught a glimpse of some mistletoe way up above his head. It wasn’t possible was it? After all these years, the p.d.a. dam was finally breaking. And Dean hadn’t warned him (of course).

The last time was this morning, as he’d stood in their kitchen doorway, back against the cool green tiles of the bunker, watching his brother cook their Christmas morning breakfast. He loved watching Dean moving in the kitchen when he didn’t know he was being observed. It was almost a dance, the way his brother’s hips would sway in time to some unheard tune, how he’d spin on one heel to move from counter to sink to stove, always so graceful and powerful.

Before Sam had even noticed he was moving, Dean was in his space and pushing him up against the tiles, slotting their bodies together and holding him there. When Sam didn’t do anything, Dean rolled his eyes and looked up over their heads dramatically, and Sam finally spotted it, a small sprig of mistletoe, tied with red curling ribbon thumbtacked over the tile arch of the door.

Sam’s arms were around Dean in an instant and their mouths were brought together in a kiss as warm as the Bailey’s and hot cocoa they’d already shared this morning. Dean tasted so sweet from the cocoa and whiskey, but once they’d kissed for a while the flavor just turned into what Sam had always thought of how they tasted. Dean’s breathing got a little heavier as Sam pursued that flavor, licking into his mouth deep and rhythmically, searching for every last bit. Finally Dean pushed him back against the opposite side of the doorway and dashed to the stove turning off the flame. He pulled the pan off the burner, and covered it with a lid.

“You know you don’t need the mistletoe to kiss me like that, right?” Sam said once Dean was back in his arms.

Dean chuckled and looked up into Sam’s face with an open, gorgeous smile. “I do yeah. I guess it’s just a reminder, and like a permission slip to do it out in public. Wait…you didn’t mind when I—did you?” Dean asked, looking concerned.

“Anywhere, anytime, no mistletoe required,” Sam answered.

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Being Snowed In

Taking on a case in Colorado in the winter hadn’t seemed like such a bad idea, they’d dealt with plenty of snow and ice over the years. And it was something that only happened around Christmas time every fifteen years. It had taken some extensive research in the stacks of all three public library branches, hours and hours going through boxes of manuscripts and files until they were doubled over coughing from all the dust, flipping through microfiche until their eyes were permanently glazed over. That wasn’t even the fun part, once they’d dug up the two graves and salted and burned the bones, a third spirit joined the party, throwing Sam into one of the largest and sharpest granite gravestones and tipping Dean into the still burning grave.

They’d had to abandon the cemetery without refilling the dugout gravesites, which Sam had felt terrible about. It was bad enough that they had to disturb the remains and burn them, but to leave it open seemed like a real insult to the people the dead had left behind. The third ghost had let them leave, and hadn’t been able to follow them, thank Chuck for small favors. But that had meant another bout of research in the libraries, they must have missed something.

Sam swore up and down that his ribs were okay, he’d barely even flinched when Dean had pressed on them to test for fractures. But then, Sam had always been a little too stoic for his own good. He’d been so focused on solving the case that he didn’t pay attention to how awful the pain was getting. Not until he stood up at the end of a long fruitless day at the microfiche machine in the basement of the library did he realize how bad it really was.

Dean was picking him up in five minutes, and it took all of that time and a bit more to slowly make his way up the stairs and out the front door. The parking lot was getting icy, the temperature had dropped by at least twenty degrees just in the time he’d been inside. He wrapped his coat around himself a little tighter and shoved his hands in the pockets wishing he’d brought his gloves. The Impala roared up, fishtailing a bit on the ice on the pavement and Sam hurried over, not watching his steps carefully enough, he was airborne and then laid flat out on the ice before he knew what had happened.

Dean’s worried face came into view, backlit against a brilliant sunset through the huge black snowstorm clouds on the horizon. It was beautiful, he was so damn beautiful, and Sam had never told him that, what if Dean didn’t know that he was beautiful to me.

“Yeah, yeah, everyone says that, Sammy, c’mon now, let’s get you up off of this ice,” Dean said, as he levered Sam up off the ground.

Everything hurt now, not just his ribs, the back of his head felt like it was swelling up and he couldn’t breathe very deeply.

“You okay there, Sasquatch?” Dean asked, after he helped Sam fold himself down into the car. Sam didn’t answer, just watched helpless and a little stunned as Dean fastened the seatbelt around his waist and patted him on the chest. He was able to lift his hand to hold Dean’s against him. His brother’s hands, they were so strong, but soft too, and the things they could do to him if he only knew.

“If I only knew what, Sammy?” Dean asked, tilting his head a little like the answer was just out of view.

Dean was still looking at him funny once they’d gotten back to the motel. The parking lot was an ice-skating rink and they held onto each other for balance to make it to their door as the snow began to pour down in a near white-out. Luckily this room’s heater actually worked, which was practically a Christmas miracle in Sam’s opinion. They had leftover pizza from last night, so Dean heated it up in the microwave and they ate it together on Sam’s bed.

“The librarian said the storm was going to drop at least a foot of snow tonight,” Dean said.

Sam raised his eyebrows in surprise but didn’t say anything because he had just taken a huge bite of pizza.

“We’ll just have to hunker down in here I guess, and hope for the best with the roads,” Dean said. “How’re your ribs feeling? You took a pretty hard fall out in that parking lot.”

“They’re okay,” Sam said, which turned into a sharp hiss of pain as Dean’s hand pressed into his side.

“You want me to wrap them up?” Dean asked.

Sam nodded, not sure if he could deal with Dean’s hands on his skin, but knowing that he needed the support of the wrap. Dean dug around in his duffel for the med kit and came up with a bottle up painkillers and a long, slightly dirty ace bandage. “Off with it,” Dean said.

Sam tried, he really did, to take off his own shirts, but he couldn’t manage it. Dean kneed up on the bed behind him and gently worked his arms and head through the tangle he’d made of his shirts. His hands stroked down along Sam’s back, pressing and feeling each rib, his warm breath a comforting caress along his skin. Sam felt awful everywhere, but it felt better anyplace Dean was touching him, it always did.

Dean’s arms came around him to start the bandage wrap in the right place and Sam couldn’t help himself, he leaned back into his brother, resting against him for a moment until Dean moved him. “You sure are being cuddly today, what’s with you?”

“’s too cold,” Sam mumbled, knowing that neither of them believed that was the whole reason.

Dean’s hands went around and around his torso, pressing, pulling, tightening, and always caressing. Sam’s skin went wild with all the touch, he needed to break his ribs more often.

“Please don’t do that,” Dean said quietly, sitting back on his heels, his hands still on Sam’s shoulders.

Sam didn’t understand, what was Dean asking? He turned a bit so he could see Dean’s face and hissed at the flare of pain. “Do what?”

“Sorry,” Sam said after he’d turned away from looking into his brother’s beautiful eyes, so intense and full of emotion, all those things Dean thought but never said, Sam could read it in his eyes.

“What are my eyes telling you tonight, huh, Sammy?” Dean asked, settling down with his back against the headboard and his legs on either side of Sam. He pulled Sam down to rest against him, nestled between his legs, head resting on his chest.

“Everything, nothing, I don’t know anymore. I don’t know what I’m saying,” Sam said all in a jumble, freaked out that he’d already said way too much. After all these years of hiding everything this wasn’t how he’d wanted it to go.

“How did you want it to go?” Dean asked in a whisper against his ear.

Sam thought he must be dreaming, or delusional, or maybe in a coma stuck in some hospital bed. There was not a chance in the world that he knew the rules of that his brother would be holding him so tenderly, whispering in his ear, asking to hear the whole thing.

“But I am holding you, and I do want to hear it,” Dean said in a firmer voice than the hesitant whisper from before.

“I wanted to not have a concussion or whatever the hell this is that’s making me say stuff I really shouldn’t be,” Sam said, disgusted with himself.

Dean’s arms and legs held him tighter as he tried to struggle off the bed. “Stay…please, Sam, just stay with me.”

Sam tried to shrug it off, to not let it mean what it should…or could. “Fine, it’s not like I have anywhere to go.”

“And it’s not like you could go anywhere either, not with the snow coming down like it is. You’re stuck with me, at least for tonight,” Dean said, his hot breath brushing against the sensitive skin on the back of Sam’s neck.

Sam reached up to hold Dean there, to feel that he was real with his own two hands, not some product of his stupidly hopeful imagination.

“Hopeful sure, stupid, no way, no how. Not my Sammy,” Dean said with a small chuckle that made Sam’s stomach flip in a slow curl of happiness and desire.

“It’s not just tonight though, right?” Sam asked, hoping that he actually had said these words out loud.

Dean didn’t say anything, his real answer came in how he continued to hold Sam closer than close, just breathing together as the snow covered the whole world outside.